Art HISTORY Courses
ARHI 13182 01 FA Univ. Sem.: Critical Moments in
Classical Art & Culture
Robin Rhodes
11:00-12:15
T/R OSHA 107
First Year Students only
A history of art in the Greco-Roman world will be illustrated
and discussed through the analysis of a series of artistic and
cultural crises. An overall view of cultural and artistic
evolution will be constructed through an understanding of
these key points of transition. Among the critical moments to
be examined will be the meeting of the Minoans and
Mycenaeans, renewed contacts with East following the Greek
Dark Age, the Persian Wars, the fall of Athens, the coming of
the Etruscans, the Roman conquest of Greece, the invention
of concrete, and the death of the Roman Republic. 3 credits
ARHI 20200/60200 Introduction to Medieval Art
Danielle Joyner
12:30-01:45
T/R OSHA 107
Fulfills Fine Arts Requirement The ten centuries designated
as the Middle Ages span regions of land that are as diverse as
the many cultures that existed during this millennium. From
Late Antique Rome to Anglo-Norman England, and from
Mozarabic Spain to the Kingdom of Bohemia, these thriving
and evolving cultures bestowed upon western culture a
tremendous visual legacy. This class will introduce students
to the exciting wealth of monuments, objects, and images that
survive from the Middle Ages, as well as to current scholarly
debates on this material. 3 credits
ARHI 30120/60120 Greek Art and Architecture
Robin Rhodes
02:00-03:15
T/R OSHA 107
Fulfills Fine Arts Requirement
Open to all students. This course analyzes and traces the
development of Greek architecture, painting, and sculpture in
the historical period, from the eighth through the second
centuries BC, with some consideration of prehistoric Greek
forebears of the Mycenaean Age. Particular emphasis is
placed upon monumental art, its historical and cultural
contexts, and how it reflects changing attitudes towards the
gods, human achievement, and the relationship between the
divine and the human. 3 credits
ARHI 30131 Archaeology of Pompeii & Herculaneum:
Daily Life in the Ancient Roman World
David Hernandez
3:00-4:15
MW DBRT 120
The eruption of Mount Vesuvius in A.D. 79 buried two
thriving Roman cities, Pompeii and Herculaneum, in a prison
of volcanic stone. The rediscovery of the cities in modern
times has revealed graphic scenes of the final days and an
unparalleled glimpse of life in the ancient Roman world. The
course examines the history of excavations and the material
record. Topics to be discussed include public life (forum,
temples, baths, inns, taverns), domestic life (homes, villas),
entertainment (amphitheater), art (wall paintings, mosaics,
sculpture), writings (ancient literary sources, epigraphy,
graffiti), the afterlife (tombs), urban design, civil engineering,
the economy, & themes related to Roman society (family,
slavery, religion, government, traditions, diet). 3 credits
ARHI 30250/60250 Gothic Art & Architecture
Danielle Joyner
03:30-04:45
T/R OSHA 107
Fulfills Fine Arts Requirement
The first monument
definitively labeled as “Gothic” is the Abbey church at St.
Denis, yet no correlating monument or object exists to mark
the finale of Gothic art. The term “Gothic” carries a wide
range of connotations and it is applied to European art and
architecture from the mid-12th century to roughly the 15th
century. In examining the architecture, sculpture,
manuscripts, metalwork, wall paintings & textiles from these
centuries, this class will compare the implications historically
ascribed to “Gothic” with the ideas promoted by the cultures
& individuals actually creating these objects. Although the
focus of this course will be France, comparative material
from Germany, England, Austria, & Italy will be included. 3
credits
ARHI 30312/60312
Venetian & Northern Italian
Renaissance Art
Robert Coleman
11:00-12:15
T/R OSHA 106
Fulfills Fine Arts Requirement
This course focuses on
significant artistic developments of the sixteenth century in
Venice with brief excursions to Lombardy and Piedmont.
Giorgione, Titian, and Palladio, the formulators of the High
Renaissance style in Venice, & subsequent artists such as
Tintoretto & Veronese are examined. An investigation of the
art produced in important provincial and urban centers such
as Brescia, Cremona, Milan and Parma also provide insight
into the traditions of the local schools & their patronage. 3
credits
ARHI 30481/60481 Art After Video
Gabrielle Gopinath
12:30-01:45 T/R OSHA 106
Fulfills Fine Arts
Requirement
The introduction of video as an artistic
medium in the late 1960s revolutionized the ways in which
artists could address their audience. It also brought a newly
literal dimension to artists’ relationship with their own
projected images. Much of the early literature in artists’ video
references its self-reflexive element: the “feedback loop” that
was initially intrinsic to the medium itself. This course
examines video art as it expands from these beginnings. The
objects of its inquiry are not strictly bounded by definitions of
medium; rather, this course will consider video in addition to
other durational media, such as TV and film, that were
influenced by artists’ video practices. Artists working in
video posed a series of thought-provoking questions in the
medium’s first decades: what is the relationship between
performance and document? How is the mediated nature of
video inflected by the art market’s emphasis on luxury
commodities? How do the qualities of a medium affect its
content in a post-modernist period? This course will address
such questions by drawing upon aesthetic theories of
temporality, site-specificity, identity, performance, and
institutional critique - as well as by screening numerous
artists’ videos dating from 1967 until recent times. It has a
substantial reading and writing component. 3 credits
ARHI 33840 Aesthetics of Latino Culture
Gil Cardenas
03:00-05:30
T
Earth Sc 101
This course will analyze the philosophy and principles
underlying the social and political aspects of Latino art. We
will approach this by examining a range of topics, including
Chicano and Puerto Rican poster art, mural-ism, Latina
aesthetics, and border art. The readings will enable us to
survey a number of important exhibitions of Latino art and to
explore new possibilities for exhibition and representation.
We will examine descriptive material and critical writings
concerning issues pertaining to the representation and
interpretation of Latino culture and art as well as how these
questions surface in a national museum context. 3 credits.
ARHI 30555/60555 History of Photography: The 19th
Century
Stephen Moriarty 01:30-02:45
M/W OSHA 106
Majors only. This course deals with the development and
use of photography as an artistic medium from time of its
invention in the mid-nineteenth century up to the present
moment. Besides viewing slides, the student will be able to
view a large number of original photographs from the Snite
Museum of Art. Regular visits to view original images from
each period will take advantage of the Snite Museum’s
extensive holdings of photographs from the various periods
studied. 3 credits.
ARHI 40320/60320 Northern Renaissance Art
Charles Rosenberg 09:30-10:45
T/R OSHA 106
Fulfills Fine Arts Requirement
This course traces the
development of painting in Northern Europe (France,
Germany, and Flanders) from approximately 1300 to 1500.
Special attention is given to the art of Jan Van Eyck, Rogier
van der Weyden, Heironymous Bosch, and Albrecht Dürer.
Through the consideration of the history of manuscript and
oil painting and the graphic media, students will be
introduced to the special wedding of nature, art, and
spirituality that defines the achievement of the Northern
Renaissance. 3 credits
ARHI 40416/60416 American Art
Kathleen Pyne
11:45-01:00
M/W OSHA 107
Fulfills Fine Arts Requirement
This course examines
American painting, architecture, and sculpture from Puritan
culture to the end of World War I. The approach is to examine the development of American art under the impact of
social and intellectual forces in each historical era. The
course explores the way in which artists and architects give
expression to the tensions & sensibilities of each period.
Among major themes of the course are: the problem of
America's self-definition; the impact of religious and
scientific thought on American culture; Americans' changing
attitudes toward European art; and the American contribution
to Modernism. 3 credits.
ARHI 43305/63305 Sem: Topics in Renaissance Art:
Mannerism: Ptg. & Sculpture in Central Italy after the
Death of Raphael
Robert Coleman
02:00-03:15
T/R OSHA 106
Fulfills Fine Arts Requirement This course will explore
artistic trends in Italy after the High Renaissance (c. 1520)
and before the Baroque (c. 1580) periods. We will begin
with the emerging Tuscan painters Pontormo, Rosso
Fiorentino, and Domenico Beccafumi, followed by Raphael's
Roman heirs, Giulio Romano, Perino del Vaga, and Polidoro
da Caravaggio. We will also investigate the dispersal of the
Roman school: Giulio Romano to the Gonzaga court in
Mantua, in 1524, and following the Sack of Rome by
imperial troops in 1527, other artists to Genoa, Bologna,
Parma, and to the French royal chateau at Fontainebleau. In
Rome, the pontificate of Paul III witnessed a flourishing of
the arts, politics, and theology. This period is marked by such
diverse works as Michelangelo's Last Judgment (1536-41)
and his frescoes (1542-45) in the Pauline Chapel, Vatican
Palace, the decorations (1536-51) in San Giovanni Decollato,
Perino's del Vaga's frescoes (1545-47) in the Castel Sant'
Angelo, Vasari's murals (1546) in the Palazzo Cancelleria,
and Francesco Salviati's frescoes in the Palazzo RicciSacchetti (c. 1553-54).
Attention will also be given to
painting and sculpture by Bronzino, Salviati, Cellini,
Bandinelli, Vasari, Giambologna, and others working at the
Florentine courts of Dukes Cosimo I & Francesco I. 3 credits
ARHI 43405/63405 01 Topics in Modern Art: Gender
and Sexuality in Modern Art
Kathleen Pyne
01:30-02:45
M/W OSHA 107
Open to majors only
In this course we will examine many of the major figures --both men and women artists --- of nineteenth- and early
twentieth-century European and American art, in terms of the
current debates about the roles of the gender and sexuality in
modern art. The selected readings will explore a broad range
of discussion in this field, as well as the theoretical sources of
these studies. The most important of these issues will include
theories of sexuality and gender derived from the writings of
Freud and Foucault; the role of sexuality and gender in the
formation of the avant-garde; the problem of feminine
subjectivity; typologies of the woman artist; the maternal
body in modern art; gender and sexuality in the artist's selfperformance of artistic identity; and the role of the primitive
in modern artistic identity. 3 credits
ARHI 43405/63405 02
Topics in Modern Art:
Perspectives on the Art of the 1970s
Gabrielle Gopinath
03:30-04:45 T/R OSHA 106
Open to majors only
The 1970s is a contested period in art history. It is often
described as hopelessly heterogeneous and internally
conflicted: ten years of acid atmosphere in which the utopian
instincts of the 1960s crashed and burned. Following the
work of scholars Lucy Lippard and Victor Burgin, the 1970s
is often characterized as a period in which modern art
dematerialized, staging the sublimation of the material object
into conceptual, performance and language-based forms.
During the same period, Roland Barthes declared the death of
the author, proselytizing an aesthetic future in which
audience reception took precedence over artists’ intention.
However, much of the art produced in the 1970s did not fit
these norms. Earth art shaped the landscape into monumental
forms that were literally too big to fit the market’s confines.
The 1970s also witnessed the reemergence of art that was
frankly figural or representational. This course examines the
decade from four thematic vantage points, using ‘body,’
‘document,’ ‘earth’ and ‘icon’ as keywords. It has a
substantial reading and writing component. 3 credits
ARHI 4857X Honors Senior Thesis
The Senior Thesis, normally between 20 and 30 pages in
length, is done under the direction of one of the regular art
history faculty, who serves as an advisor. It is expected to
demonstrate the student's ability to treat an important art
historical topic in a manner which shows her/his writing
skills and methodological training. It is expected that the
thesis will be suitable for submission as a writing sample for
those students intending to apply to art history graduate
programs.
ARHI 47X7X Special Studies
Independent study in specific art history area under the
direction of an individual faculty member.